Arkansas execution plan may use UK firm's drug

ASSOCIATED PRESS

September 18, 2015

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - A British pharmaceutical company that told Arkansas not to use its products during executions is trying to determine if the state plans to use them anyway, but prison officials are dismissing inquiries about the drug by citing a new law that makes all execution policies an official state secret.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals canceled a contract with Arkansas prison officials in 2013, after it learned the state purchased a seizure medication and another drug to use in lethal injections from one of its U.S. subsidiaries.

But records indicate that the state - which plans to resume executions next month after a 10-year gap - has a powerful sedative in its execution-drug supply with a label that appears to be from West-Ward Pharmaceuticals. The company is a Hikma subsidiary based in New Jersey.

Susan Ringdal, a Hikma vice president, said, "We continue to strongly object to our product being used for lethal injection."

The state's new secrecy law allows the state to withhold information about its execution-drug suppliers. Arkansas Department of Correction spokeswoman Cathy Frye said the law bars her from saying whether Hikma had contacted the department. She said the department could not respond to anyone - even manufacturers - asking about the drugs.

The AP obtained redacted photographs of the containers, product inserts and expiration dates of drugs that were purchased for executions. The records show the items were purchased by the state in one transaction on June 30 for $24,226.

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The AP then reached out to three drug companies whose unique labels appeared to match the photos. The labels appear to show that Hikma manufactured the state's supply of midazolam, a sedative implicated after inmates gasped and groaned during longer-than-expected executions last year in Arizona, Ohio and Oklahoma.